New computer or new frontend?

[Rabe]

Hey everyone, I've read through the forum and the stickied topic but could not find an answer to my problem.

I'm about to buy a new computer for a cab I'm making, it will probably have a 1ghz processor and either 128 or 256 mb ram running win98se or winXP. My question being: Will this be enough to run my games using the newer versions of mame (something between 0.80 and 0.88) ? I think the games I'm having the most problems with playing on my current computer (500mhz 256mb win98se) is the Metal Slug series and I'd like to be able to play them without the slowdown.

The reason I want to use one of the newer versions to play my games is because I want my frontend to list all of my roms in one list, and not per system or per emulator. And using the computer (and frontend) I use now, I need at least 3 different versions of mame to run all my games at normal speed (thus creating three different lists of games in my frontend). So a new frontend might be an even better option then the new computer.

So any suggestions on what frontend will do what I want it to and any advice from people with similar systems as the one I'm about to buy would be appreciated.

- Rachid

[Apollo]

My only advice is not to run WinXP with 128MB RAM.

[LordDamo]

Hey everyone, I've read through the forum and the stickied topic but could not find an answer to my problem.

I'm about to buy a new computer for a cab I'm making, it will probably have a 1ghz processor and either 128 or 256 mb ram running win98se or winXP. My question being: Will this be enough to run my games using the newer versions of mame (something between 0.80 and 0.88) ? I think the games I'm having the most problems with playing on my current computer (500mhz 256mb win98se) is the Metal Slug series and I'd like to be able to play them without the slowdown.

The reason I want to use one of the newer versions to play my games is because I want my frontend to list all of my roms in one list, and not per system or per emulator. And using the computer (and frontend) I use now, I need at least 3 different versions of mame to run all my games at normal speed (thus creating three different lists of games in my frontend). So a new frontend might be an even better option then the new computer.

So any suggestions on what frontend will do what I want it to and any advice from people with similar systems as the one I'm about to buy would be appreciated.

- Rachid

What size video card have you got? Im only running a PII 400mhz for my mame box - with win2k, 256 mb ram and a 64 mb GeForce4 with tv out. And as you can probally tell from my avatar,  im a metal slug fan myself.

I only got this video card yesterday, and they were the first games I went and tested, and they work fine.

For my front-end I use Kymaera. It highly configureable (in every way you want it to be).

http://sourceforge.net/projects/kymaera/

here's a thread on this board from the author, who is really dedicated to making this "the last front end you'll ever need"

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=25247

Hope this helps

[EmuHead]

Hi Rabe. I currently have a 1ghz athlon with 128mb for my cab project and although I have not played metal slug (only a few roms at the moment) i can tell you that I have the following games running at 60fps:

Street Fighter Alpha 1/2/3
WWE Wrestlefest
Splatterhouse
Final Fight
Gem Fighters

Some games which are not very playable are

WWE Wrestlemania (just about playable but works on 0.69)
Killer Instinct 1/2 (am told 4ghz is needed)

And thats about all i can tell you at the moment. In a day or two I will have a full 0.88 setup and will gladly test anything you like. Also I would advise overclocking if you dare risk it as this significantly improved performance on my system. Its running at 1.3ghz instead of 1ghz. If your planning to run XP with 128mb then some serious tweaking is in order (can give details of the whole proccess if you like, im running XP).  Also I had lots of trouble with the Kymaera front end, so now use MAMEWAH, which comes highly reccomended from myself - http://mamewah.mameworld.net/

Hope this helps.

       EmuHead

[SirPeale]

Killer Instinct 1/2 (am told 4ghz is needed)

Nope, try ~2GHz.

[Crazy Cooter]

If the comp is going into a cab, I'd stick with win98 with 256mb ram.  that will play all the roms fine.  If you want to play KI 1 & 2, follow Peales advice.

[EmuHead]

Sorry for the misinformation there (4ghz for KI), 'twas carnevil i was thinking of i believe. Im going to scrap XP tonight and go back to 98. Will post in the morning with info. Wish me luck.

[paigeoliver]

I have sold more than one mame cabinet that had the neo geo games running full frame rate all the time, with a celeron 400 under the hood.

Just use Mame .55 for older comps. Every game supported by that version should run full speed on 400 mhz+ hardware, and there hasn't been an "important" game added since then that will run on that hardware anyway, thus there is almost no reason to use a mame newer than .55 unless you have a ghz+ computer.


Also, once again. I am considering putting this information in my signature in 60 pt bold flashing type.

Your video card DOES NOT MATTER for Mame. Not at all. Not one bit. Mame is not a 3D application.

I have even gone so far as to test out games using both an ancient 1MB Ati video card and a newer 128 MB monster of a card. Framerates with throttling turned off were essentially identical. Said 1MB ati card is in my 1.2 ghz mame computer right now.

[Rabe]

Thanks for all the replies, luckily i have found a frontend that does what I was looking for, so I will just use an older version of mame for games that run slowly.

Just use Mame .55 for older comps. Every game supported by that version should run full speed on 400 mhz+ hardware, and there hasn't been an "important" game added since then that will run on that hardware anyway, thus there is almost no reason to use a mame newer than .55 unless you have a ghz+ computer.

Well, one problem I seem to have with using older versions of mame is that  certain roms that should work on older versions are missing files when I try them, but still work normally when using a newer version of mame.

[Minwah]

Well, one problem I seem to have with using older versions of mame is that  certain roms that should work on older versions are missing files when I try them, but still work normally when using a newer version of mame.

Yes it can be awkward to get all your roms to work with old MAME versions.  ClrMAME helps, but not for ALL games...

[paigeoliver]

We should see if we can't get a complete .55 romset together and get that into circulation with the burners as the "Mame classic" romset.

[pointdablame]

We should see if we can't get a complete .55 romset together and get that into circulation with the burners as the "Mame classic" romset.

If we could get a set up, we'd probably be better off using bittorrent so that the "not for profit" burners can't charge us $20 for a few dvds.

[paigeoliver]

We should see if we can't get a complete .55 romset together and get that into circulation with the burners as the "Mame classic" romset.

If we could get a set up, we'd probably be better off using bittorrent so that the "not for profit" burners can't charge us $20 for a few dvds.

The .55 set would fit on one DVD. That was before the CHD games and before the REALLY HUGE late 90s fighting games got added.

Actually, like 98 percent of the .55 set will fit on one CDROM. The last 2 percent will eat most of the rest of a DVD though.

[Apollo]

Awesome idea Paige, it has my vote.

[pointdablame]

We should see if we can't get a complete .55 romset together and get that into circulation with the burners as the "Mame classic" romset.

If we could get a set up, we'd probably be better off using bittorrent so that the "not for profit" burners can't charge us $20 for a few dvds.

The .55 set would fit on one DVD. That was before the CHD games and before the REALLY HUGE late 90s fighting games got added.

Actually, like 98 percent of the .55 set will fit on one CDROM. The last 2 percent will eat most of the rest of a DVD though.

Ya know, I really should have thought of that.   It makes bittorrent and even more viable means of getting the files though, since it would be that much smaller.  

[EmuHead]

A little bit of advice if your downgrading from XP to 98 - make sure all your drivers are 98 compatable. A hellacious experience could have gone so smoothly. Dear oh dear......

[Dexter]

Just finished a cab with a 1ghz athlon in it, 64mb Ati radeon 9000 card, 256 MB of ram running mame .63 and arcadeos. Almost all games run fine (including metal slug 1,2,3,x) under DOS and win98se.

Hope this helps

[Lilwolf]

My take.  

Use whatevers free!  You can get mame working on a 450 with a ton of games running (all the classics)...

BUT... if you are going to BUY a computer... You want to buy something thats about 1 - 1.5 years old... Still being mass produced but not the 'latest'

Go with AMD for the price / performance improvements... And ignore the 64bit systems if mame is your primary goal... they are great but not worth the extra cash.

Also, video cards don't matter... But a AGP slot is good for ArcadeVGA card later if that is a goal (long / short).

Next.. Pick your budget and get the fastest processor you can get.

AMD XP2000 + motherboard for $79 bucks...

but if you have an extra 40 bucks laying around your up to a XP2700...  You might get another 2% games running... but if you like any of the new ones... you might find...  A 2 ghz handles almost all games... a 3.4 handles the Zinc games (but Zinc 1.0 is out... and runs on a 2ghz...) So you wont get much out of your extra cash...